Millennials beware, a monetized wave of nostalgia is breaking upon your Aughtsy+ shores.
I previously shouted out the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show at Crystal Ballroom, digging my spoon deep into a bowl of ’Member Berries to recall the magic stirrings I felt in my soul the first time I heard the Philly/Brooklyn band’s self-titled debut somewhere in or around 2005.
The band – or at least the preternaturally gifted vocalist Alec Ounsworth – arrived in Davis Square last Thursday to perform the debut album in full (along with a few extra nutmegs) to an audience of appreciative 30- and 40-somethings. Some of them even brought their kids! And there was no hit left behind.
It’s the 20th anniversary of the release, so it’s as good a reason as any to get back in the saddle and enjoy the indie rock mewlings of a world prerecession, pre-Maga, precrypto, presports betting ads, preglobal rise of authoritarianism, anti-vaxxers and billionaire fanboy cults …
Jesus fucking christ, everything really went to shit. ’Member when we all thought 9/11 was the low point? More than sixteen 9/11s have happened in Gaza since that genocide picked up steam at the end of 2023, as our political leadership just cheers on the bloodshed.
Let Ounsworth & Co. take you back to a simpler time. Lou Barlow (Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Folk Implosion) just played The Rockwell. Peter, Bjorn and John (you know, the Swedish whistlers who don’t care about the “old folks”?) are coming to The Sinclair next Thursday. Christopher Owens, the former Girls frontman, will continue to prove that he’s doing just fine as a solo act at The Rockwell at the end of May. And don’t get me started on the millennial mania at Boston Calling this year: Fall Out Boy, Avril Lavigne, Vampire Weekend, et al.
As we land upon the 20- and 25-year anniversaries of notable releases, millennials are entering the Pander Zone. It’s a candy shoppe full of sweet treats. But don’t eat too many or all at once, lest you get an upset stomach. Nostalgia is a luxury that triggers brain rot, and we need to keep our wits about us in these profoundly unluxurious times.
Hit this
Friday: Jabberbob, Riffindots, Max Weigert (Cantab Lounge, Cambridge)
Maybe I’m on a musical theater kick lately. Sunday at The Brattle I saw Godard’s “Une femme est une femme” which might be the closest the French director ever got to the genre. I caught “Wrath of the Selkie” at The Rockwell last Monday. The rock opera took home a People’s Choice award at the Boston Fringe Festival. And now Jabberbob is rolling into the Cantab Lounge for an EP release show with a funky, piano-driven album that sounds like it would do just fine with the full stage treatment. You know: a spotlight, props, protagonist, choreography, and a little razzle dazzle? Central Square won’t know what hit it.
Sunday: Sunnydaze (The Burren, Somerville)
The last hurrah? You could cover local music full time and still barely scratch the surface of the musical depths that surround us. I stumbled on this band at Somerville Porchfest, composed of vamp-hungry Tufts students who “simply refuse to be contained by a single genre,” and I made a mental note to track what stage they play next. The Graduation Bug must have bit, because the members are headed their separate ways after one final gig at The Burren. One final heroic opportunity to stand toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest, chin-to-chin with “a single genre” and proudly utter Sartre’s immortal phrase “Je refuse!” before their leases run out.
May 23-26: Campfire Festival (Club Passim, Cambridge)
May 23-25: Boston Calling (Harvard Athletics Complex, Boston)
Campfire versus Boston Calling: Steel Cage Match! Two fests enter, only one fest leaves? In truth, both long-running local events will live to fight another day. And they form a perfect symbiotic pair, each drawing a crowd that wants nothing to do with the other. Boston Calling is our hometown version of the jumbo dumbo summer fest avant la saison. Sweaty crowds muscling atop astroturf to catch big names. Campfire takes it down a notch – several thousand notches down – to offer a relaxed scene of emerging and established folk heads in your grandparent’s refinished basement. As different as these two fests are, I could see an act such as Mon Rovîa (Boston Calling, Saturday) pleasing both crowds. Shades of Bon Iver and James Taylor all in one.
Live: Somerville Porchfest
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. There was a lot of chatter in advance of Somerville Porchfest about changes being made to the event in response to last year’s Guster Affair. But neither rain nor nanny-stating was going to stop the Truly tribes, Hoppy hordes and White Claw clans from claiming their rightful place in the streets for a day of local music.
To review, the two major changes were (1) certain streets were now “off limits” to performing acts, ostensibly to maintain through access for emergency vehicles, and (2) a volunteer force of fest “ambassadors” materialized, hanging about and looking fly in their exclusive Somerville Porchfest-branded T-shirts.
The first change produced a supremely predictable result. All the “musicians allowed” streets became that much more crowded. Which was good for performers looking for an audience, even if it artificially manufactured a greater number of uncomfortable pedestrian “pinch points” than in previous years. “Pinch points” are as joyless as they sound, but the locals remained in reasonably good humor.
To the Somerville Arts Council: It’s not at all clear that making certain streets “off limits” to musicians will improve safety or reduce traffic.
The argument that “emergency vehicles can’t get through” is flimsier than drivers care to admit. Pedestrians move out of the way just as easily as cars, and they take up less space. Further, are emergencies not just as likely to happen on these suddenly overcrowded side streets, jammed up with all the bodies that have been shunted off the main thoroughfares? We’re in danger of making one half of the streets impassable when we make the other half “off limits.”
In addition, the old transportation adage about “induced demand” (that adding lanes increases, instead of reduces, traffic) proved true to my observing eye. The new rules incentivized visitors to Uber to Porchfest instead of taking public transportation. And, once they arrived, to Uber again to more distant porches instead of walking. Meanwhile the Uber drivers didn’t know or care which streets were barricaded for “pedestrians only” – they drove around barriers to collect their fare, and that was that.
Dare to dream of a festival intended for pedestrians that doesn’t need to waste all the available oxygen talking about how to appease auto traffic. But designing an event such as Porchfest, planted in the heart of neighborhoods instead of dusty fields or vacant lots, is a challenge. And as long as Porchfest keeps drawing crowds, it’s a circle that the city is going to have to square.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
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